


Mutual Family

by ishouldwritethatdown



Series: Family Ties [1]
Category: Wolverine (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, First Meetings, Gen, parties are awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 16:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18944791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Laura unexpectedly runs into her brother at a Future Foundation gala, and she introduces him to her sister while he introduces her to his boyfriend. They end up thinking about their feelings on a roof, because they're Wolverines.(Post-ANW #7)





	Mutual Family

Laura _hated_ wearing ties.

The suit was fine, nice even. She enjoyed the elegance of it, the way it sat square on her broad shoulders. She enjoyed not having to where high heels on her shoes. She could still walk normally in a tux and flat shoes. But the _ties_. The collar wasn’t _actually_ choking her, there was no real danger – she just hated the feeling of it. But this was a black-tie event. She had to wear a bow tie.

(And she wasn’t twelve. She didn’t feel she could get away with wearing a clip-on one.)

“Gabby, stop fiddling with it,” she told her under her breath.

“It won’t stay straight,” she protested, fiddling.

“ _Leave it._ ”

“Names?” the doorman requested. This was already sickeningly upscale.

“Laura and Gabrielle Kinney,” she said, and tried to ignore seeing Gabby mouth her full name mockingly out of the corner of her eye.

“Right this way, madames,” he waved them into the ballroom, which was already packed with people dressed in tuxedos and gowns. She scanned the crowd for someone she knew, a beacon of safety, while Gabby continued to wrestle with her bow tie (which, at her insistence, was not black but bright pink). She settled on the buffet as at least a place to head, when she was saved by a friendly face.

“Laura!” Sue greeted happily, giving her a hug and holding her Champagne flute safely out of the way. “So glad you could make it. And this must be Gabby; a pleasure to meet you. Sue Storm.”

“Laura!!” chorused another two voices, and she felt a wave of dread come over her as she was dive-bombed by the Stormlings. Valeria was already babbling about some probably-reality-bending-nightmare-project or other that she was working on while Franklin asked her questions at a hundred miles an hour about her taking up the Wolverine mantle and everything that had happened since she last babysat them and also before, because she hadn’t been a chatty babysitter.

“Kids, please give Laura some room to breathe,” Sue said patiently. “And don’t be rude, introduce yourselves to Laura’s sister, Gabby.”

Laura felt vaguely sorry for their intensity being deflected onto Gabby, but at least she seemed to have the energy to match them (for now). She gave Sue a grateful glance, and she returned a smile.

~

Daken _loved_ wearing ties.

There were more ways than wearing a tux to feel powerful, but this was the one that seemed to work best on Johnny, so for the moment it was Daken’s favourite. Wearing a tux made him feel expensive… valued. Not to mention sexy as all hell.

“Daken, you need to actually _tie_ the bow tie,” Johnny chastised, fixing his cufflinks.

“If you don’t like how I wear a suit, maybe you should come over here and get me out of it,” he wiggled his eyebrows.

“That’s quite enough of that,” he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think we’re late enough for the gala already?”

“I could stand to be later.”

“ _Daken_.”

He laughed and took the end of the tie in his hand. “Anything for you, honeybunch. Lend me a hand?”

Johhny faltered and went a little red. “Right, sorry. I… _forgot_. I’m an idiot.”

Daken shrugged, deciding to rib him just a little. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up too badly. I once forgot my entire left arm, too. Swear I left it on a subway car, but nobody turned it in. New York, am I right?”

He flicked a glance up to his eyes, frowning, and then back down to his neck to finish tying the bow. “Are you ever going to tell me what actually happened?”

“It’s a long and stupid story, and I don’t even get to be the hero,” he sighed, bored.

“Oh, I have no interest then,” he joked, and Daken grinned back. “Try not to talk like you want to strip me down to my underwear and pin me to the ballroom floor the whole way through the night, okay?”

He pouted. “But you look so good, Johnny. If they can’t see that, it’s on them.”

He sighed and patted his chest, nodding with an evaluative face. “Yep, you still wear a suit excruciatingly well. Let’s go, before Reed disowns me for derailing yet another scheduled event with my tardiness.”

“You can disown your brother-in-law?”

“Let’s not find out.”

The gala was packed. Ordinarily, Daken would be figuring out his play, finding the most powerful person in the room and exploiting them – but this was the Fantastic Four’s night, not his, and he forced his conniving tendencies onto the backburner. Never mind that he could do more with the net worth of this room than these rich fucks ever could…

“Champagne, sir?” offered a waiter.

“Gladly,” he said, taking a flute. No. Tonight was just enjoying getting free food and being Johnny’s arm candy. No crazy plots. No Wolverine drama.

“Johhny, there you are!” Sue exclaimed, and started talking quite quickly in a tone that meant they were going to be occupied for some time. While his date was distracted, he thought he might as well check out the buffet, and he wove his way over through the crowd. He reached for a spring roll, but his hand was intercepted by a much quicker, littler one, and he glanced at the kid briefly before doing a double take.

She was dressed in a kiddie tux with a pink bow tie and had her mouth absolutely stuffed with buffet food like a hamster, thin pink lines scarring her tweenage face – but she had, bizarrely and impossibly… _Laura’s face_. She had frozen upon locking eyes with him, maybe feeling guilty for whisking away a sizeable portion of the buffet, or maybe in recognition.

With incredible speed, she crammed the snatched spring roll into her mouth and ducked under the buffet table, making the cloth tremble in her wake. When he whipped it up with a frantic “Wait!”, she was nowhere to be seen.

“Daken, have you seen Frankie and Val? They seem to have disappeared,” Sue asked, approaching him while looking around for the tots.

“Nope, sorry. Although I did just see… a buffet raider,” he said, opting not to include the part about her having his sister’s face.

Sue sighed, seeming mostly unconcerned as she continued to scan the ballroom. She turned after a vague thank-you in his direction, and he heard her exclaim, “Oh, Laura! Did you see where Gabby and the children disappeared to? I fear they may be wreaking havoc somewhere.”

~

It was almost comical. Sue said her name, and the man behind her began to turn in recognition at the exact same moment that she clocked his ridiculous floppy mohawk. Sue’s question ended up left unanswered as she stared at Daken, who seemed to be wearing a look of pleasant surprise.

“Hey sis,” he greeted, clearly as bewildered to find her there as she was to find him.

“What are you doing here?” she blinked.

“I have an invitation, if you’re insinuating that I snuck in,” he said, although she could tell he didn’t think she was implying that. Then he seemed to decide that the evasive reflex was unnecessary and answered, “I’m Johnny’s date.”

She didn’t have time to work through her surprise that Daken was dating someone and that that date was _Johnny Storm_ because there was a tremendous crash on the other side of the ballroom that sounded expensive. She hoped Gabby wasn’t the one responsible for it as Sue stalked over to the disturbance with frustrated motherly muttering under her breath.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about the strange chaotic gremlin with your face I just saw raiding the buffet table,” Daken asked.

Laura slapped a hand to her face. “I am going to kill her.”

He chuckled. “Long story?”

“Long story,” she agreed. “Her name’s Gabby. She’s been living with me.” She realised what was unsettling her about Daken’s appearance, even though he looked the same to when she had last seen him – his arm was still missing. He caught her frowning at where the sleeve of his suit had been gracefully tied off and tucked in.

“Yeah, my healing factor’s taking its sweet time coming back. It’s making the bedroom way more boring,” he smirked. “Reed’s working on it.”

“I’m guessing he doesn’t know that your priority is bedroom stuff,” she played into the joke, even thought she was fairly confident that Daken wasn’t as much of a masochist as he was implying. As if he’d let anyone have that much power over him, right? Still, if he wanted to invent kinks to cover for how scared he was to still be without his healing factor, she wasn’t going to call him out. At least not yet.

“So since when have you been so chummy with the Four?” he asked. She’d ask him the same, but she did vaguely remember somebody mentioning it at some point – the first time he died, they had been there to mourn him. There weren’t a lot of people in the world who considered him worth mourning.

“Shortly after our collision in Madripoor,” she answered. “I had been marked by the Enigma Force along with Sue and Spider-Man and saved Valeria from the Whirldemon King.” She had then been asked to babysit the children and ended up halfway across the universe with her ex-best friend and a fucking dragon, but she was not under any circumstances going to speak about that openly at a Future Foundation gala when she had never told Sue and Reed about the details of the evening.

“Johnny never told me about that.”

“He was dead at the time.”

“That explains it,” he nodded sagely, then cracked a smile at the absurdity of that. It was sometimes alarming how trivial death was to super-people, even those without healing factors.

There was an announcement through the speakers, and the Future Foundation took to the stage to welcome everybody formally to the gala and say a few words about the work they were doing. Franklin and Valeria were also on-stage (staying remarkably still), and Laura peered around the hall for Gabby. She was behind her and Daken, strategically plucking items from the buffet. There was no way she was eating all of that – she had to be secreting food away to eat at home. She made a mental note to get Gambit to give her some lessons on sleight of hand so she wasn’t so obvious about it.

She applauded the end of the speech and turned to glare at Gabby. She gave her a guilty smile and shuffled up to her side, also giving a polite few claps before the party faded back into its general ambience. Daken seemed captivated by Johnny across the ballroom, who was laughing and talking to somebody who had approached him as he got off the stage. She took a moment to be impressed that her brother had found somebody who could hold his full attention, and then she tapped his arm.

“Daken, this is Gabby,” she introduced, “Gabby, this is Daken. He’s one of us.”

He grinned at that, and extended his hand to her, which she shook vigorously. “Not a clone. Just afflicted with being a Wolverine,” he clarified.

Gabby gasped. “You need to meet Jonathan!”

Laura sighed. As Daken stood bewildered by her hurried explanation of Jonathan the wolverine’s history and his undeniable place as part of the Wolverine family, she noticed Johnny making his way over to them.

Daken looked relieved by his boyfriend’s rescue. “Johnny,” he smiled broadly, hooking his arm around his waist. “I can’t believe this was organised by some of the most genius minds on the planet and you didn’t cross-check your guest list for Wolverines. It’s a very fortunate coincidence that Laura and I are no longer trying to kill each other.”

Gabby gave her a questioning glance, and she rolled her eyes dismissively. They hadn’t ever been trying to kill each other. And they hadn’t fought properly since they first met four years ago.

“These are my, uh, sisters. Laura and Gabby.”

Gabby _beamed_. Whatever other mayhem was going on at this party, she had found another piece of her family, and Laura was happy for her.

The gala pulled them all in different directions; Daken stuck to Johnny like glue, who was always being called over and carted off by various people with whom he was all acquainted, Gabby soon fell back into running around with Franklin and Valeria as well as a couple of other children who she didn’t know. Laura hit her mingling limit just shortly after Peter Parker insisted on chatting with her, and was scanning the room for the best exits.

“Second floor west fire escape,” Parker said, and she blinked out of her focus to look at him again. He tossed a cashew into his mouth casually. “Quickest and easiest way onto the roof.” When she kept staring at him, he shrugged, “You’ve got a look on your face I recognise from your dad.”

But he acted like such an idiot…?

She gave him a thankful nod and made her escape. The night air was refreshing, and she loosened her tie, exhaling with the freedom. She sat down on the roof and let her mind wander. It didn’t surprise her that her mind settled on Logan; it often did when she came out to sit on roofs in the dark. Peter was right; she was like him in more ways than she cared to count. It was something she tried to be proud of… but she was also trying to be better. She wasn’t just a clone of him, she was herself, and she made her own choices.

Not a puppet on a string. Not any more.

After some time alone with her thoughts, she heard the door of the fire escape open. “You up there, Lor?” Daken asked.

She got up and went to the edge of the roof. He smiled at her and asked, “Lend a hand?”

She let him anchor himself on her arms while he climbed the ladder. “How many times a day do you make that joke?”

“At quite literally every opportunity,” he answered truthfully. “I’m going to miss it when this arm grows back.” They sat down together, and he produced a couple of slightly smushed cakes from a napkin in his pocket, offering one to her.

Eating cakes on a roof with her brother. This was the chillest family time they’d had since Mr. Sinister tore his arm off and she’d sat in silence by his hospital bed for three hours. She’d told him she would be there for him now that they were the only family each other had left, but when he’d pushed her away after Mystique’s bullshit was over, she’d let him. She was trying to be better than Logan, but she’d let Daken drift away just the same.

“Thinking about Dad?” he asked. She nodded. “Me too.”

The last time Daken had seen Logan alive… “He called me, you know. After you died. After he… killed you.”

He looked at her. “He did?”

Laura could remember it clearly. He’d been quiet over the phone, in a sucking-his-teeth kind of way. She’d waited patiently for him to speak, sat cross-legged on a tree stump. She wasn’t far from civilisation, close enough to smell it, but she liked this little patch of woods. Frost still glistened here and there, twinkling like stars.

“I killed Daken,” he’d said.

No frilly language. No question of accountability. Just a statement.

“Oh,” she’d said.

It was hard to tell if she felt anything in that moment. She and Logan had killed a lot of people. But Logan clearly felt that this one was different.

“I let him down. I should’ve-- there must have been something else I could have done.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I know.”

Some people might have considered her cold for responding how she did. She could see that now, with a little more social experience under her belt. But Logan had known what she meant; that there was no changing the past. All he could do was look harder for another solution next time. It was him who had taught her that.

But all the same. There wouldn’t be a next time for Daken.

This was the thing with being a hero. Sometimes people died. And sometimes those people came back later - although it wasn’t always in a way that made it better. But sometimes people stayed dead. And when Logan had been holding Daken’s lifeless body in his arms, that must have seemed pretty permanent.

Laura was looking her brother in the eyes that he shared with his father, who was dead, and for the time being seemed permanently so. And she told him, “He said he wished he could have helped you. That he could have been there for you. Saved you.”

Daken processed this. She could practically hear the gears whirring in his head. “But, Fang said… Fang said Logan was relieved that he killed me.”

“Fang just wanted to fuck with you. I doubt much of what he said to any of us was true. Logan… Logan was a lot of things. But he was not someone who found satisfaction in killing his own family,” she said. She averted her eyes from him. A memory crawled up her spine like a spider, and she forced out, “Do you know what happened the first time we met?”

Daken shook his head.

“I tried to kill him.”

He snorted. “I’m sensing that this is something of a family tradition.”

She flicked a brief smile at him, but she was too bogged down by the memory to sustain it. She had been fifteen. She had been alone. “The Facility was clever,” she said, feeling the acidity of the name on her tongue. “I knew who Logan was. Rice never let me forget it. They made me think that he was to blame for what happened to me. So when I got out… I tracked him down.”

Daken was taking in her story as if he was looking in a mirror. She knew his history; she understood why.

“He tried not to fight me at first. Even once I made it unavoidable, he just kept _talking_. And once I had him pinned down… he told me I was welcome to kill him. That he probably deserved it. But he wouldn’t let me kill myself.” She laughed. “I don’t know how he planned to stop me, if he was dead. Crazy old fool. But then, maybe I’m the dumbass for not figuring that out at the time.”

A smile had settled onto her face, the kind of gentle smile that was incomplete without a couple of tears. They were like fragments of that moment slipping through her tear ducts - neat little memories of the water that had sprung into her eyes the moment that he said he wasn’t going to let her go.

“He said that I didn’t deserve to die. He said he was sorry. He said he was sorry for all the ways they hurt me, even though he didn’t know. He took responsibility for what they did simply because he existed first for me to be made.”

The water was flowing heavily now, heavier than she’d let it in a long time. Her vision was swimming. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Daken’s direction. “He loved us, Daken, even when we didn’t ask him to, even when we hated him. Logan loved us. And he knew we could be more than what they made us.”

Daken pulled Laura into a hug. She was supposed to be comforting _him_. That was why she had started this conversation. How had she let it turn into him comforting her?

He sniffed, and exhaled a shuddering breath, and held tighter onto her shoulders. She realised what was happening, and pressed her hands harder into his back.

“Don’t ruin my shirt with your snot and tears, you asshole,” he said, distinctly weepy.

“Don’t ruin mine,” she cracked a smile over his shoulder.

“Fuck off.” He sounded about as commanding as a wet paper towel.

She heard the slightly dwindling hubbub of the party drift out into the night air as the window opened. It was a little too dark to see the figure that was climbing onto the roof in detail, but it wasn’t rocket science, and she didn’t make it difficult for them.

“What is it with Wolverines and roofs?” Gabby asked, wobbling slightly on the tiles, but keeping her balance well. “Sue sent Franklin and Valeria to bed.” As she got closer, she stood upright and stopped. She must have seen their tears glistening on their cheeks or just the way Daken’s arm was still draped around her shoulders in a loose post-hug embrace, because she said, “Oh. Sorry.”

“Get in here,” Laura sniffed, opening an arm to her.

“What are we crying about?” she asked, slipping one arm around each of them and leaning her forehead in to Daken, who couldn’t give her an arm of his own.

“A stupid old man,” he answered.

“Okay,” she said, and she could most likely deduce who it was.

There wasn’t a lot Laura wouldn’t have given to see Gabby meet Logan, her Logan, the man she missed and loved. Finally he might have a kid that didn’t try to kill him. A kid that could smile easy, who used her claws to skewer marshmallows instead of people. A kid who watched cartoons, and did colouring books, and brought home stray animals, and stuck brightly-coloured stickers on everything. And tried to steal an entire buffet bit-by-bit.

She held tighter to her family, and took in their scent, which was mixed with a splash of salt. They were together, and safe. She knew that was all that would be important to him.


End file.
